


you really got me now

by myconstant



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Atlético Madrid, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 15:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7392838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myconstant/pseuds/myconstant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s an honor to play with you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you really got me now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badsenpai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badsenpai/gifts).



> to be filed under: confusing atleti feelings leftover from january 2015

 

 

Of all people, Mario ends up figuring it out first.

You see, Antoine’s never had much of a straight face. This unfortunate reality is already a much-celebrated fact in the Atlético Madrid dressing room, thanks to biweekly poker nights at Raúl’s place and the hundred euros he still owes Koke. It’s always been like this – when Antoine’s happy, it’s obvious, when he’s sad, it’s obvious, when he’s lying, it’s obvious - but the real revelation comes one morning when Gabi mentions the upcoming return of the club’s prodigal son at training and Antoine, crouching down to relace his boots, looks up a little too quickly.

Unlucky for him, Mario sees this and says so. 

“You got a crush, Anto?” he teases, reaching over to muss up Antoine’s mohawk as if he’s a puppy, or something equally small and cute.

Antoine attempts to scoff, because it’s not like that at all, and swats Mario’s hand away from his hair.

“ _Torrrrres,_ ” Mario says, elongating the syllables so the name sounds outrageous.

“What about him?” Antoine asks, trying and failing to sound casual.

Mario shakes his head and laughs. “Never mind.”

 

 

Now despite what Mario or anyone else has to say about it, Antoine definitely does not have a crush on Torres.

It’s only that everyone has their favorite footballer - an idol, a hero, a single player who encapsulates everything about the game. For Antoine, it’s been Fernando Torres since Antoine was fifteen years old and brand new in Spain. He would stay up late to watch and rewatch the easy way the ball would fall to el Niño’s feet on the tv highlights, then wake up early and try to replicate the same in his front yard.

If there’s anything that Antoine might be a little (a _little_ ) uneasy about, it is that Torres will somehow disappoint. That he might not be what fifteen-year-old Antoine imagined, which is nothing short of brilliant and amazing and super cool with great hair. Twenty-three-year-old Antoine knows that this is probably a little unfair, the leftover remains of a mild case of teenage hero-worship, but even so, it’s definitely, definitely not a crush.

Besides, how do you even crush on someone you’ve never met? Antoine would like to know.

 

 

As it happens, they meet in January.

January itself marks Antoine’s fifth month at Atlético. Everything about the capital city is rowdy and noisy, not necessarily a bad change from San Sebastian, but still entirely different.

This statement includes his teammates. The roster is essentially one big family divided into twenty-one feuding factions – twenty-two if you count their manager and you probably should. There are a lot of pranks, a lot of tackles, a lot of explosive arguments over everything and nothing. The on-going debate over who’s been “borrowing” Arda’s shower shoes regularly teeters on the brink of violence.

Antoine has, for the most part, fit right into this equation. He gets on well with the rest of the team and has the growing adoration of the fans. There are steady minutes and he’s playing his best game. He doesn’t have any real complaints, except that he’d wish everyone would stop messing up his hair for good luck before matches.

January also marks Torres’s return home. It’s a big, big deal at the Calderón; a homecoming that doubles as yet another reason to win, another chance to prove everyone wrong, another opportunity to say _yeah, we fucking told you so_. Not that this is their primary motivator, but okay, it doesn’t hurt.

Antoine gets to training early on their first day back after the Christmas break and is running warm-up laps around the frost-hard grounds when someone falls into pace next to him. He glances up, expecting it to be Jan or Saúl, and instead -

He stops short.

“It’s an honor to play with you,” Fernando says with a small half-smile, extending a gloved hand.

And Antoine looks for words but comes up with nothing because it’s like he’s fifteen years old again with el Niño posters double-taped up on his bedroom walls so he just kind of grins like it's Christmas all over again and sort of hugs (jumps on) Fernando instead.

 

 

Besides what the world already knows about Fernando Torres - that at thirty he looks closer to twenty, that he is blond and boyish and maybe a little shy - Antoine finds that it is still hard to get to know him. Torres joins the team for their first training of the new year and is everything humble and grateful and sincere. He says thank you more times than Antoine has ever heard in his life: to the team for welcoming him back, to the fans lined up at the gates, to the groundskeepers he hasn’t properly seen in five, six years. But Fernando also fits in so well with the rest of the team, the fans, and the club that it’s apparently like he never left, that there’s nothing really for him to be thankful for because he’s here with family. And if he feels any embarrassment or awkwardness or hesitation over the way of his return home, it doesn’t really show.

“Incredible,” Fernando Torres tells Antoine during a rare lull in training. “Scoring three at San Mames?” He shakes his head. “You’re incredible.”

Antoine doesn’t really know what he’s listening to - it sounds like it might be his idol complimenting him on his football, which is _insane_ \- but before he can come up with a reply that consists of more than noises that vaguely resemble words, their manager is shouting for Torres on the other side of the practice pitch and Koke is up in Antoine’s space, jumping on his back and inviting him out later on the promise of reckless behavior.

Mario still manages to be Mario about it, elbowing at Antoine suggestively whenever Torres is in proximity, so Antoine is starting to get tired of scowling all of the time. Or, as Mario points out on the team bus to the Calderón, trying to scowl.

“I can scowl,” Antoine insists. “Look at me. I’m ferocious.”

He makes his best Don’t Fuck With Me face. Mario laughs so hard he cries. In the row behind them, Raúl grunts in his sleep and kicks at the back of their seats; Mario uncaps his water bottle and squirts it blindly back over his head.

They go ahead and win 3-1 at the Calderón against Levante, Torres sitting up in the stands because some Serie A rule says so. Antoine finds a first-half goal, finding the pass and heading the ball into the back of the net in the eighteenth minute, and he honestly doesn’t plan to do it.

He doesn’t plan to drop to his knees, to pull an invisible bow and then let it release - Fernando’s old goal celebration, the grass wet under his knees - until he’s already gone and done it.

“Thank y-,” Fernando starts to say after the match in the dressing room, when Antoine is still high on goals and the final whistle and the French hip-hop Gabi reluctantly lets him play on the speakers after they’ve won. He's still in his kit, covered in sweat and dirt. Fernando’s wearing a suit, his hands tucked into his pockets.

“No, no, no,” Antoine cuts off, waving an impatient hand. “I won’t listen to this. It’ll be yours again next week.”

Antoine's not exactly sure what he means by _yours_ , but somehow Fernando seems to understand, some sort of psychic striker thing, because he nods his head a little bit and nudges his shoulder into Antoine’s, the beginnings of a grin on his face. He opens his mouth to say something but then there’s someone shouting for Torres to go do press and someone else shouting for Antoine to turn down the music and someone else demanding that Arda's shower shoes return to their rightful owner.

“And Griezmann,” a voice calls over the post-win dressing room noise. Antoine looks up and Fernando smiles at him before ducking out. “Very ferocious.”

 

 

It _is_ Fernando’s next week.

Two goals at the Bernabéu in the copa, one in the first minute of each half, and it’s adrenaline and chaos and _we told you so_ as Antoine runs to Fernando and swings an arm around his shoulder to bring them together and Antoine decides that it has to be true.

Fernando Torres really is nothing short of brilliant and amazing and super cool with great hair.

Unfortunately for Fernando, the rest of the team picks up on that last part.

“Don’t you hate that?” Fernando asks after they all discover that messing up _two_ bleach-blond heads before a match means _double_ the good luck.

They’re lining up in the tunnel at Córdoba. Fernando’s hair is sticking up in every direction. Antoine’s is too.

“Nah,” Antoine says, using a mirrored panel on the wall to try and pat down a stubborn tuft in the back. Fernando grins and reaches out to help, and Antoine finds himself leaning into it for a second, letting Fernando’s fingers rake easily through his hair. “I think I’ve gotten used to it,” he says.

 

 

And of all people, Mario figures it out first.

“I think he likes you,” Mario tells Antoine during training. 

Antoine is crouching down to relace his boots and doesn't look up at all. “What?”

“Likes you, likes you.” Mario adds, face completely straight.

“Who?”

“ _Torrrrres._ ”

Antoine rolls his eyes, ignoring Mario as he insists that he’s serious, that Fernando looks at him like he’s the sun or some other incredible thing from outer space, and he forgets all about it.

Forgets about it until their match the next day when he finds the back of the nets and slides to the ground, when someone’s hand finds his and laces their fingers together, pulling him to his feet as the noise in the Calderón echoes. Antoine lets himself be drawn into a massive embrace beneath the lights, hands bracketing his face, and Antoine knows that what Fernando is shouting is true:

it’s theirs, it’s theirs, it’s all theirs.


End file.
